They left the palace together.

  The doors sealed behind them with a sound too final for comfort.

  Zenkyou stopped at the top of the steps. The casual ease she’d worn outside the throne room was gone, replaced by something colder. Official.

  “What you heard inside,” she said, “never happened.”

  Her gaze moved from Ren, to Orin, to Shura.

  “You forget it. Every word.”

  Shura didn’t lower his head.

  “If Empress Rose can hide the truth from you,” he said, “then why tell you at all?”

  Zenkyou studied him for a long moment. Her expression didn’t change, but the air around her did.

  “Well,” she said quietly, “who knows how royalty thinks.”

  She turned away. “I’m leaving with Ren and Orin.”

  Yura stepped forward before Shura could speak again. “I’ll take him. He needs to understand the basics.”

  Ren leaned down until his shadow swallowed Shura’s feet.

  “If you hurt her,” he said cheerfully, “I’ll feed you to something that chews.”

  “Ren,” Orin groaned. “Don’t bully the half-dead.”

  “I’m not bullying,” Ren replied. “I’m setting expectations.”

  They bumped shoulders, the tension sharp but familiar.

  Zenkyou stopped walking.

  The temperature dropped.

  “You two want to die today?” she asked calmly.

  Silence.

  Then Orin laughed and shoved Ren away. “See? You scared him.”

  Ren grinned. “Worth it.”

  They walked off arguing like siblings who had survived too much together to ever truly fight.

  Yura watched them go.

  “They’re idiots,” she said softly. “But they’re good people.”

  Ossuarium didn’t welcome Shura.

  It absorbed him.

  The streets curved with intention, stone thick enough to resist pressure that would crush bone. Metal veins pulsed faintly through walls and arches, like a circulatory system buried alive.

  Yura walked half a step ahead of him.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Her hands were clasped in front of her. Not fear. Habit.

  “This is the central transit line,” she said.

  Shura stopped.

  The platform stretched wide, carved directly from stone. Black metal tracks gleamed under artificial light. The train rested there, segmented armor humming softly, like a sleeping insect.

  “…That’s a train,” he said.

  “Yes?” Yura blinked.

  “Underground.”

  She tilted her head. “Where else would it be?”

  The doors hissed open. Workers stepped out. Soldiers stepped in. No shouting. No panic.

  “Back where I lived,” Shura said slowly, “trains ran under the sun.”

  Yura froze.

  “…Sun?”

  The word sounded wrong. Foreign.

  “You don’t know what that is?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Is it dangerous?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s warm.”

  Her brows knitted together. “Warm… light?”

  He smiled without meaning to. “The sky turns blue. Clouds move. There’s a moon at night. Oceans you can’t see across.”

  Yura stared at him.

  “…Clouds,” she repeated faintly.

  Shura’s smile faded.

  She wasn’t pretending.

  “We don’t have a sky,” she said quietly. “There’s the Ceiling.”

  She looked up.

  “That’s all there’s ever been.”

  The Royal Capital rose around them in layers, ramps spiraling upward, bridges rotating, lifts humming. At the center of everything stood the Beacon.

  Up close, it was overwhelming.

  A pillar of condensed light surged upward, runes rotating like trapped stars as it pierced the misted Ceiling. Shura’s chest tightened. His Viora reacted on instinct.

  “That thing feels alive,” he whispered.

  “The Core Beacon,” Yura said. “It might as well be.”

  She explained how monster cores were refined. How energy flowed through the Kingdom. How light, transport, water, and defense all came from the same source.

  “So if monsters ever end,” Shura asked, “what happens then?”

  Yura didn’t answer.

  They kept walking.

  The Beacon’s pulse rolled through the stone beneath their feet, steady and patient, like it had all the time in the world.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally.

  Shura looked at her.

  “No one does,” Yura added.

  “We’ve always had monsters.

  They come from outside the sealed zones. From deeper tunnels. From places the maps stop.”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “Some say they’re born there. Some say they wander in. Some say they’ve always existed.”

  She gave a small, uncertain smile. “Guild stories change depending on who’s telling them.”

  “And if they stop coming?” Shura pressed.

  Yura’s fingers tightened together.

  “Then we rely on the mines,” she said. “We already do, partly. Minerals that conduct Viora. That’s what keeps the Beacon stable when core supply drops.”

  Her voice softened. “But it wouldn’t be enough forever.”

  She glanced at him, eyes searching his face, as if expecting him to argue.

  They reached the fields.

  Crops grew in glowing rows, leaves faintly luminous, roots threading through channels of shaped light embedded in the stone.

  Shura stopped.

  “How do these grow without sunlight?”

  Yura blinked. “…Sunlight?”

  “Natural light,” he said. “From the sky.”

  She crouched, brushing her fingers through the soil. The glow reflected faintly across her skin.

  “The Beacon feeds them,” she said. “Light is… made. Or redirected. That’s what we’re taught.”

  “Artificial day,” Shura murmured.

  “Yes.”

  She paused, fingers still in the soil.

  “…You keep saying ‘sky’,” Yura said quietly.

  Shura looked at her.

  “And ‘surface’.”

  She lifted her hand, studying the glow on her palm like it might explain something.

  “If there’s a place above us,” she said slowly, “with its own light… then why did anyone come here?”

  The question wasn’t accusation.

  It was fear.

  Shura didn’t answer.

  Something twisted in his stomach, tight and cold.

  Because for the first time since he fell into the Deep, he realized—

  The Guild Hall loomed ahead.

  “Why Guilds?” Shura asked.

  “Because soldiers can’t be everywhere,” Yura said. “Guilds clean what leaks through.”

  “What leaks through?”

  She met his eyes. “Everything that wants us dead.”

  “Who built all this?” Shura asked.

  “Our First Lord,” Yura said reverently. “Kiyoshi Miyamoto.”

  She spoke of foundations. Of defenses. Of survival.

  “And then?” Shura asked.

  “He left.”

  “…Just left?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked up at the Ceiling.

  “His blood still rules. Emperor Yun Shi of Aethelgard.”

  Shura stared at the city.

  No sky.

  No sun.

  No escape.

  And still alive.

  Guilt settled heavy in his chest.

  “This world is insane,” he muttered.

  Yura smiled faintly. “That’s why it’s home.”

  Night didn’t fall.

  The Beacon dimmed.

  Light cooled. Streets slowed. Patrols shifted. The Kingdom exhaled.

  “…So this is night,” Shura said.

  “Beacon Cycle Three,” Yura replied. “Most people rest now.”

  They walked in silence.

  The corridors thinned as they moved away from the Guild’s central ring.

  The noise faded first. Then the light softened, less ceremonial, more human. Shura hadn’t realized how tense his shoulders were until they started to loosen on their own.

  “You can stay with me,” Yura said suddenly.

  Shura blinked. “What?”

  “My place,” she clarified. “For a while. Until you figure out where you’re going. Or until the Guild assigns you something permanent.”

  She said it like it wasn’t a big thing.

  Like offering shelter to a stranger pulled out of nowhere was routine.

  “I don’t want to be a burden,” Shura said.

  Yura glanced at him, mildly offended. “You won’t be.”

  After a pause, he nodded. “Then… thank you.”

  She smiled, just a little.

  Her home surprised him.

  Not because it was large.

  Because it wasn’t trying to be.

  The structure was old stone reinforced with quiet enchantments. No excess. No display. Relics embedded into the walls pulsed faintly, stable and expensive in a way only people who didn’t need to prove anything could afford.

  Rich, Shura realized.

  Very.

  He almost asked why someone like her worked Guild hours, followed orders, walked patrols.

  Almost.

  The question stayed where it belonged.

  They sat for a while, eating in silence. The Beacon’s rhythm hummed through the walls, steady enough to pretend the world made sense.

  “Training starts tomorrow,” Yura said eventually.

  “With Zenkyou,” Shura guessed.

  Her lips curved. Not kindly.

  “Sleep well,” she said. “It might be your last peaceful one.”

  He exhaled a weak laugh. “That bad?”

  She stood. “She doesn’t break people by accident.”

  At the doorway, Shura hesitated.

  “Yura,” he said. “Ren… why does he act like that with you?”

  She paused.

  Didn’t turn around at first.

  “He worries too much,” she said finally. “Always has.”

  That was all.

  She closed the door behind her.

  Shura lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling as the artificial night settled in. The Beacon pulsed. Time moved forward whether he was ready or not.

  Tomorrow, Zenkyou would decide if he was worth shaping.

  And somehow, that felt heavier than the fall ever had.